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Dan T. Coenen

University Professor & Harmon W. Caldwell Chair in Constitutional Law

B.S., University of Wisconsin
J.D., Cornell University

Courses:

Contracts and Sales
Constitutional Law

Biographical Information:

Dan T. Coenen has served on the Georgia Law faculty since 1987. He teaches in the areas of contracts and constitutional law. In 2008, Coenen was named the holder of the Harmon W. Caldwell Chair in Constitutional Law, having previously held the title of J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law since 1997. He was also awarded the title of University Professor in 2005. The University Professorship, awarded to no more than one UGA faculty member per year, is reserved for professors who have served as "change agents" for UGA and have had a significant impact on the university in addition to fulfilling their normal academic responsibilities.

Coenen's scholarship includes: The Story of The Federalist: How Hamilton and Madison Reconceived America (2007), Constitutional Law: The Commerce Clause (2004), "The Originalist Case Against Congressional Supermajority Voting Rules" in the Northwestern University Law Review (2012), "Where United Haulers Might Take Us: The State-Self-Promotion Exception to the Dormant Commerce Clause Rule" in the Iowa Law Review (2010), "The Pros and Cons of Politically Reversible 'Semisubstantive' Constitutional Rules" in the Fordham Law Review (2009), "A Rhetoric for Ratification: The Argument of The Federalist and its Impact on Constitutional Interpretation" in the Duke Law Journal (2006), "The Rehnquist Court, Structural Due Process, and Semisubstantive Constitutional Review" in the Southern California Law Review (2002), "A Constitution of Collaboration: Protecting Fundamental Values with Second-Look Rules of Interbranch Dialogue" in the William & Mary Law Review (2001), "Business Subsidies and the Dormant Commerce Clause" in The Yale Law Journal (1998), "Suspect Linkage: The Interplay of State Taxing and Spending Measures in the Application of Constitutional Antidiscrimination Rules" in the Michigan Law Review (1997) (with Professor Walter Hellerstein) and "State User Fees and the Dormant Commerce Clause" in the Vanderbilt Law Review (1997).

Coenen received the Josiah Meigs Award, the university's highest honor for excellence in teaching, in 1998. He has been selected by students on multiple occasions as the recipient of the Faculty Book Award for Excellence in Teaching, which is now the C. Ronald Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the John C. O'Byrne Memorial Award for Significant Contributions Furthering Student-Faculty Relations. He has also received the Professionalism Award and has been chosen by 10 graduating classes to serve as an honorary marshal at their commencement ceremonies. Coenen served as a UGA Senior Teaching Fellow from 1999 to 2000. He was inducted into the university's elite Teaching Academy in 2000, was elected to a multi-year term as a member of the organization's executive committee the following year, and was again elected to the executive committee in 2014. He also has served as both vice president and president of UGA's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Coenen demonstrates the role of the lawyer as a public servant through his active involvement in the local community. He helped lead the campaign to pass a Special Local Options Sales Tax (SPLOST) in 1994, then served as a member of the Citizens SPLOST Advisory Committee, a group appointed to oversee implementation of projects funded by it. He has served on the board of directors of the Oconee River Land Trust, the Sandy Creek Nature Center, the Athens Grow Green Coalition and the Community Connection, and he coached basketball teams for the Athens-Clarke County Recreation Department for nearly a decade. Three different mayors of Athens, Ga., have appointed Coenen to serve the community in various roles, including as a member of the Athens-Clarke County Criminal Justice Task Force.

Coenen worked as a judicial clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun and for Chief Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit prior to joining the law firm of Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, in Charlotte, N.C., where he later became a partner.

Coenen earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and his law degree from Cornell University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Cornell Law Review. He and his wife, Sally, have three children: Michael, Amy and Claire.

"The Curious Role of Interpretive Formality in American Constitutional Law" in Prescriptive Formality and Normative Rationality in Modern Legal Systems: Festschrift for Robert S. Summers (Duncker & Humblot, 1994).